Gretzky, Lemieux, Jagr, Selanne, Savard, Sundin, Forsberg, Fleury, Kurri, Housley, Palffy, Salming and Stastny are some of the NHL greats who have worn the JOFA emblem proudly upon their foreheads during some of the highest scoring and most important seasons and careers in NHL history. This blog discusses the JOFA helmet, the different models, who men who wore them, their significance, where to buy and sell them, how to fix and modify them, and why they are icons of hockey excellence.

May 29, 2012

The JOFA 366 / Visir-ett

When I first began my interest in JOFA helmets, my goal was to own an actual JOFA 366; just like my favorite player, Teemu Selanne. It took a long time, and a lot of effort, to finally get my hands on one of these! Shown is actually my second 366, the first one I found did not have a front bumper, which was quite a bummer (but gave me a chance to create a great template for creating super accurate modified helmets!).

But it wasn't without more searching, and a bit of luck, that I finally got my hands on a brand new, complete with packaging and hardware, JOFA half shield. These half shields, from my experience, are nearly as difficult to find as the JOFA 366.

The thing that makes these half shields special, is that they fit on the JOFA 290/390/366 helmets perfectly without any need for adding mounting holes to accomodate a half shield. This particular half shield was said to have been obtained from obsolete equipment purchased by the Tampa Bay Lightning; a sticker dates it from 1995.

Here are some pictures of the JOFA Visir-ett packaging; which includes a vague diagram on how to properly install the half shield. It comes with four wide head screws; two 9mm and two 7mm. Also, it includes two black rubber washers; which with a little thinking (no thanks to the diagram), I realized were to fill the sunken holes, where the original screws went. This apparently makes sure that there is no gap between the shield and the helmet, resisting the chance of cracking due to over tightening.

When I got this helmet, a few parts were missing; one being the chin strap. But since I have acquired quite a collection, and have helmet parts, including a bunch of removed straps from modified helmets, laying around; I trimmed and melted the edges of a new JOFA strap, and used my finest JOFA snaps to complete. Notice that some snaps have little slits on the side of the dome, which you can see if you look very closely above. I'm not sure why some are like this, but they are more difficult to come across.

Finally pairing the JOFA 366 with an actual JOFA half shield really gave me a kick; this is by far my favorite helmet. I remember, as a kid, seeing this helmet, and thinking "that's the coolest helmet I've ever seen". This is still true, I don't know of any other helmet that has such a beautiful, simple, yet complex, design.

So, for all you out there, who have wondered about the JOFA 366 (like God knows I have), here it is! I hope these pictures are what, some of you, have been searching for; I have not found any complete, high resolution pictures of the JOFA 366, so it is my honor to present them to the internet! Enjoy!

4 comments:

By the way. Teemu is searhing Jofa's all the time as he wears them out a lot. They are hard to find. If you think you can get few helmets, let me know. I am sure he would trade new one for game used ones.

It warms my heart to see these helmets so praised. As a kid growing up in Sweden you saw these helmets everywhere, not just in ice skating. If my school class would go out sledding, the teacher would hand out a good 20-30 of those round JOFA helmets, the school i went to probably still has a good 60 of those helmets lying around or still being used. Also, these were not junior sized helmets since all the kids were wearing thick beanies underneath. As soon as the more rectangular shaped JOFA helmets was released, these round JOFAs was considered really dorky and ugly so most kids were reluctant to wear them anymore. I remember myself to be one of the last kids on my hockey team to wear one of those round helmets but eventually had to get a new one when the team restricted us to have same color helmets. Somewhere in the attic, my blue 366, a VM from my fathers time, and one of the newer ones still lies around.